


Puppets

by FleetSparrow



Series: Story a Day in May 2018 [23]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 02:35:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/pseuds/FleetSparrow
Summary: Mary notices puppets.  She can't help herself.  They're everywhere.





	Puppets

**Author's Note:**

> Day 23 of Story a Day in May. Prompt: Pick a detail only your character would notice.

She had always hated puppets. The way they just sat there when unused, bent at all wrong angles, like something dead. As a child, this had been a phobia, one she'd even gone to counseling for. It didn't help that her uncle was a puppeteer. Instead of being delighted when he performed, like her siblings, she, instead, was terrified watching them dance and prance around the stage. They were helpless creatures who could only move when others were using them.

Maybe she felt too much like them to ever be comfortable with puppets. Her mother and father moved her out of the way and into place every day,always yelling at her to be out of the way. It wasn't that anything was wrong with her necessarily, it's just that sometimes she forgot how to move and would stand in the same spot for hours if left unattended. Her doctor had said this was stubbornness not seizure when they'd come to him for a check up. If she would just try harder at being normal.

It was the puppets, she thought. She'd been named for one, the first one that her grandfather had made. She was a very special puppet, made out of porcelain instead of wood. One of a kind. Miss Merry Mary. It sat in her room and watched over her while she slept.

This is all to say that Mary was somewhat attuned to puppets in a way most people would not be, which leads us to the first day she walked into her new boyfriend's house. Hanging in a glass cabinet was a small wooden puppet. She froze when she saw it, her boyfriend nearly running into her.

"Oh, do you like it?" he asked, reaching for the cabinet.

"No, don't!" she cried, flinging her hands out before her.

He gave her an odd look. "It's only Jacques. He's been my little friend since I was a kid." He opened the cabinet and took out the puppet, missing the way Mary shivered as he did. "I wanted to be something of a professional as a kid. I'd do all kinds of voices for him. Would you like me to show you some?"

"No, thank you," she said quickly. "I'm not... I'm suddenly not feeling well. I should go home."

"Has something upset you?"

"No, no. Just, my stomach, you know. It happens. Really, I should go."

He put Jacques away and closed his cabinet. "I'll take you home if you'd like."

"Thanks, but I'll take a Lyft. It's no trouble."

"It's no trouble for me, either," he said.

"Really, don't--" She broke off. The puppet was watching her. She stepped back. "I should go."

"Please, let me drive you home. It really isn't a bother at all."

"That's.... Fine."

He took her arm and guided her towards the door like a child. She stood there, unwilling to move until he had to pull on her arm to make her walk. She turned around, her back to the cabinet, and felt the eyes of the puppet watching her walk away.


End file.
